Fading Star Eulogy
by jackspiegel
Summary: ***Finished*** Desperate for reviews! After Real Folk Blues part 2, Jet copes and gets a new bounty. Written like an episode. Preview for next episode coming soon!
1. Snowfall

1 Legal Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing!!! CB is property of Sunrise. Please R&R. Here's chapter 1 (opening/avant title).  
  
2  
  
3 Opening  
  
Everyone's favorite Seat Belts song, "Tank!" cut down to 1:01 for the main title.  
  
4  
  
5 Avant Title  
  
"Bang."  
  
Jet Black's voice rumbled into the afternoon like thunder, disturbing the near-silence of falling snow. It fell from Jet's right, almost ushering him to his left in the same fashion as he would, as an ISSP officer, pushing crowds and grunting out the familiar "There's nothing left to see here, move along".  
  
A flake landed on his right cheek, and another on his forehead. By this time, he'd developed a dusty coat of snow on the one side of his large frame, but he couldn't take a step until he'd faced facts. His finger was still pointed at the grave, his thumb having clicked the shot that his voice echoed only a few seconds ago. He smirked at the notion that he'd picked up his friend's old habit. His thoughts drifted like a soft wind, refusing to register the information that his eyes and sense of logic were trying to pound into his head.  
  
"It's not exactly silent - you can feel the noise it's making."  
  
Jet turned abruptly to the voice, sheepishly lowering his hand as his gaze became fixed on a young man. He was placing items of no consequence but great sentimental value on a nearby grave, and when he'd finished he stood and turned to Jet.  
  
"The snow, I mean. In the middle of the day or the dead of night, you can always, but just barely, hear the dull sigh of it brushing against the ground."  
  
"Yeah. I always thought it was pretty creepy, myself."  
  
The two figures stood in silence for a moment that lasted too long, almost uncomfortably so. Finally, the young man walked off and Jet was left with a stone that had various words etched on it. A name, first and last. Two years, printed side by side (2044-2071). Some silly words that were supposed to sound symbolic.  
  
Fresh soil, several days, most of which were filled with silence, accompanied by the filling out of some forms and a lot of standing in front of this stone. This is all that separated him from Spike Spiegel.  
  
Both sets of the men's footprints were already filling with fresh snow by the time Jet had walked back to the BeBop.  
  
5.1 Words and letters flash, eventually settling on "Fading Star Eulogy", but no Session Number. 


	2. On the Road

A/N: By the way, for anyone who has the CD "o.s.t. 1" (or for anyone wishing to download the tunes), the songs I think of in this episode are "cosmos" when Jet thinks back on Spike's last day (in this chapter), "memory" during the graveyard scene (previous chapter), and "waltz for zizi" in the next chapter once they re-board the BeBop.  
  
(We open with that familiar shot of Mars as the spaceships fly through the gates, heading towards the planet at a very quick speed.)  
  
"Jet!"  
  
For the second time in one day, Jet was caught daydreaming and startled by the voice that awakened him. This time it was a tinny, gruff ISSP officer on his computer screen. In another lifetime, Jet thought, that would've been me giving crap to some cowboy daydreamer.  
  
"I said I got quite a bounty head for you today, my friend."  
  
He was back on the BeBop and had been staring at the vacant seat next to him. Jet walked over and considered smoothing out the groove that was there, left by its previous occupant. Against his better financial interest, Jet was ignoring Donnelly's voice barking good jobs at him.  
  
"Donnelly, maybe I'm not up for a return to work yet."  
  
His old partner was still listing off more names than he could count.  
  
"-Roberts, knocked over a bank a couple days ago and made off with 40 million wu-longs. He's suspected to be hiding out here on Ganymede but we can't find him anywhere. You bounty hunters tend to have better noses than the police with a 6 million reward at stake. Next, Nicholas Spade-"  
  
"Donnelly, I told you - what did you say?"  
  
Donnelly smirked, knowing he'd caught his friend's attention, even though he didn't know why. "I said Nicholas Spade."  
  
Jet's mind flashed to the graveyard, to Spike's grave, and the one the young man had been paying his respects to. "Donna Spade. 2006-2070. Beloved mother to William and Nicholas."  
  
"-seen somewhere on Mars, near the graveyard at the West end of the city. The bounty on this guy is 8 million wu-longs."  
  
"Donnelly, what'd this joker do, anyway?"  
  
"Picked a fight with someone in the Red Dragons. Push came to shove, blood was spilt and a shot was fired."  
  
Jet thought back on his friend Spike. They should give an 8 million wu-long reward to Spade for killing one of those bastards, he thought. Even still, maybe I should bring him in to the police before some careless, fool bounty hunter gets rough with the guy.  
  
Jet turned the BeBop around and headed back for Mars.  
  
On the way back, he thought of the events following his and Faye's final confrontation with Spike. Almost in a daze, Jet carelessly trimmed a large, live branch off his bonsai tree and immediately realized his mistake. He tied it back on with duct tape and hoped it could heal again. Then there was the wait that lasted too long, a door that waited open and ended up serving no purpose, and finally the decision to retrieve his friend before he was mistreated by a shoddy paramedic, much like he wanted to do for this next bounty head.  
  
He looked out the cockpit window and thought he saw where Spike's star was missing from the sky. All too true, he thought. Like a melted snowflake, absorbed into the coldness of space.  
  
Since he told Faye about Spike, she'd made herself absent nearly the whole time. She'd only stopped in for a few brief words and a gun since their last day together. It was like they were a fighting couple who never wanted anything to do with each other, but Jet knew that in time it would all be fixed. He'd handle it his way and she'd handle it her way, but soon enough she'd be back to freeloading and tagging along and generally getting in the way just like old times. Or so he'd hoped.  
  
He landed his old fishing ship and again set foot on Mars' surface. Despite a lack of ambition after his sudden loss, Jet painstakingly looked for clues and evidence to find Nick Spade, the same way he'd conduct himself if he were sick but still working.  
  
Time crawled by like a crippled insect and the trail got cold. Spike had always been able to track down bounty heads like he had radar, but without Spike, Jet had to make do with what he had. He thought he'd seen Faye walking the streets, fresh footprints crunching in the snow, but he hadn't been able to tell for sure.  
  
Taking a break, Jet Black found himself sitting in a bar, ordering a drink. He bit a cigarette out of his tattered pack and tried his lighter. Sparks flew but the lighter was empty. Jet turned to the guy on the stool next to him.  
  
"Hey man, you got a light?"  
  
The man wheeled around and Jet found himself staring at Nicholas Spade. 


	3. Desolation Angels

The cheery voice only made Jet's heart drop a little farther. "Hey, it's the guy with the semi-automatic finger!" He lit Jet's cigarette and waited for his reply after a long drag.  
  
"Heh heh. How are you, Mr. Snowfall?"  
  
"Well, I've seen better days, but it's like Charlie said: You've got to give a little before you can get anything back. I think Charlie said that. Anyway, how have you been?"  
  
Jet decided to brush off the Charlie Parker coincidence, as he'd quoted it to Spike less than 6 months ago, the first time they met Faye. "Dealing with the past, same as you I suppose."  
  
Jet ashed the front end of his smoke into the ashtray and took another big drag while he listened to the poor guy talk about his family.  
  
"Well, in case you didn't see whose grave I was in front of, it was my mother's. They say that the things you place in front of a person's grave sometimes get stolen by some really scummy people, but we still like to give her back some of her favorite things."  
  
"We?" Jet continued to smoke.  
  
"Yeah, me and my brother Billy. I just like to have a drink and loosen my nerves a little, which is why I'm in here."  
  
Jet looked at the floor for a moment before meeting his acquaintance's eyes again. He extended his hand. "My name's Jet. Jet Black."  
  
Nicholas took his hand and shook it firmly. "Nick Spade. Good to meet you."  
  
"Likewise."  
  
"So what brings you here, Jet Black?"  
  
Jet smiled an embarrassed, effortless smile and opened his mouth to speak.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The rest of the day went pretty terribly. Jet told Nick who he was and that he had to take him in. Nick ran, as they usually do, and Jet followed in his smaller ship that had been parked in the BeBop. After he'd gotten him in and tied his hands (loosely enough not to hurt, but tight enough to hold), they started back to the police station. It wasn't far, and he knew he'd be back before Faye noticed he was gone.  
  
"So why did you kill the Red Dragon member?"  
  
Nick's family owned the bar they were in. They got in debt with Mao Yenrai and, unbeknownst to Mao, threats started and things got too far out of hand before the Spades could pay Mao back his money.  
  
"We must've owed 70 or 80 million. As a final bill, Vicious went to my mother's house and gutted her like a fish."  
  
Jet's frown got a little deeper.  
  
"Mao was furious when he learned this. As an apology for Vicious' acts, Mao cleaned our slate and visited me and my brother each to tell us in person. This was enough for Billy to forgive, but I couldn't get the image out of my mind, Vicious killing my mother. Eventually I saw red, talked one of the Red Dragons into meeting me regarding some 'information' and I shot him. First I asked him where his bloody arm got hit and he spilled his guts. Little did I know that Vicious had died just hours before, and the guy I met was coming back from the scene. As soon as I learned this asshole was on Vicious' new army of Red Dragons, I pumped his guts full of lead."  
  
Jet smirked, knowing that one of the pricks shooting at Spike had got his too. Then Jet said, as nonchalantly as he could, "Did the guy say anything about the guy who killed Vicious?"  
  
"Yeah," Nick replied. "He said the guy was hard as hell to kill. Like a ghost."  
  
Jet knew the rest of the story but tried to keep it blocked out.  
  
He dropped Nick off with ISSP and reassured him he'd be safer there than he would walking his own streets after killing a gang member. He deposited his reward and re-boarded the ship. With nowhere in particular to go, he walked to the small side room near the kitchen and sat on the stool.  
  
He tried to focus on his bonsai tree, concave cutters in hand. He instead was stuck in the past. Walking up the steps of the crime scene. Staring unblinking at a body, face-down on the stairs, bloody and lifeless. Jet had sat next to him, facing down the stairwell and looking straight ahead at the horizon. He turned the body over with a prosthetic hand, to prevent himself from feeling cold skin, and refused to look at the face. Instead, he shut the eyes and called the paramedics. He watched over his friend like a newborn baby, making sure he was handled with the care he deserved.  
  
Jet clipped a small, dead branch from his tree. Next, he watered it carefully and set the glass jar of water to one side. Finally, he unwrapped the tape from the large branch of the bonsai to find that it had started to heal.  
  
See You Space Cowboy...  
  
Ending â€" "The Real Folk Blues" played over the normal credits.  
  
Ok everybody, R & R!!! 


End file.
